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Dzongsar Khyentse’s new film premiers in Switzerland

Posted on September 15, 2016 ·

The fourth and latest film from Bhutanese Buddhist teacher, lama, and filmmaker, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait, premiered last month at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland.

Last year, Lion’s Roar reported that Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, also known as Khyentse Norbu, launched a Kickstarter project to gather funding for the film, which is said to be his most personal and artistic feature to date.

In an interview with Variety, executive producer Jeremy Thomas described the feature, filmed on location in Bhutan, as “the story of a man’s [spiritual] journey to act the way you would act if you had no identity.”

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche became renowned as a filmmaker for his first feature film The Cup in 1999, followed by Travellers and Magicians in 2003 and Vara: A Blessing in 2013. He examined film as a metaphor for the Buddha’s teaching about samsara, nirvana and life itself in his Lion’s Roar article, “Life as Cinema.”

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche was born in Bhutan in 1961 and is recognized as the second reincarnation of the nineteenth-century master Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. He supervises his traditional seat of Dzongsar Monastery in Eastern Tibet, along with colleges in India and Bhutan.